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Rough:Chapter One
March 19th, 2356 / Tsengel, Uaghiristan / De-Inhabited Zone ("Shatterlands"), Central Asia Once, long ago before the War, Tsengel had been one of the remotest towns in the world, straddling the point where four nations met, but inhabited by an ever dwindling few until it lay all but deserted. Those days were gone, however. Pushed north by the Singh State, the Uaghiri people had rebuilt the collapsed stone houses and built a great capitol for themselves there, resembling the kind of sprawling urban metropolis one might have seen in the heyday of Kharkhorin, the ancient and long lost capitol of the Mongol Empire at its height. Sprinkled in were some signs of progress; the smoke from a manufactury, the occasional flickering digital screen or lit sign, the las and plas weapons worn as openly as the talwars, shamshirs, and Khyber knives most folk had hung from their belts. Though much had changed among the Uaghiri, a certain segregation still existed between the ethnically Turkic descendants of the Uyghurs and the Pamiri descendants of the Wakhi people. The Turkic majority still clearly held most of the wealth, power, and privilege while the Pamiri did not. Among them, however, walked a stranger. Quite obviously no more Turkic than he was Pamiri, he had dark skin and pure white hair as befitting his extensive, yet not quite elderly, age. He walked with a youthful spring to his step, though he occasionally halted to lean on the tall walking stick he carried, hooked at the top like a shepherd's crook. Upon his head he wore a dark blue turban in dastaar style, below which his forehead was creased with many lines and framed by full bushy white brows. A bulbous nose coming to a narrow point just between his deep brown eyes extruded from his face, crooked from being broken too many times and upon its tip were balanced a small pair of spectacles, the right lens a spider's web of cracks. His course beard was trimmed short and framed a thin-lipped mouth behind which lurked a mosaic of missing teeth, though those that remained shone a pearly white. The man's mustache, however, he had let grow long and was finely groomed and curled up at the tips. He was clad in a navy woolen deel, a traditional robe of the nomads and tribes to the north, that matched his turban, and from under which peeked the gnarled tips of his sandaled toes as he strode briskly along. His hands were wrapped in threadbare cotton wrappings, dyed tan by the sand and the dust, and a simple iron bracelet adorned his right wrist while an unadorned gold wedding band twinkled on his left ringfinger. The only true finery he wore was a gold silk girdle about his waist, both ends shredded to ribbons, in which was tucked a small and wickedly curved dagger in a gilt-work scabbard decorated with ivory and turquoise in the image of an elephant's head in profile. All told the man was nearly half a head shorter than the average Uaghir, and though not quite malnourished in appearance, he was notably lean, especially bent as he was beneath a large clamorous rucksack from which hung so many objects that those who saw him stopped to wonder what he kept in the bag that was not already hanging from various ties, clasps, straps, and hooks on the exterior. The sky was a yellow haze when the blue-robed figure turned away from the Turks with their high white caps and into a primarily Pamiri-district of the city where men and women alike wore flat brimmed caps at jaunty angles with colorful ribbons tied about them. Almost immediately he was mobbed by both children and adults all shouting in high voices, "Sahib! Sahib!" and "Ardesh!" The man stopped, leaning against his staff, and began detaching the various and sundry items attached to his rucksack and handing them out to whichever grasping set of hands was nearest. By the time his rucksack was bare, only a very short time after he had begun, he had declined innumerable invitations for hospitality and various gifts, as well as one or two flirtations. Now with the crowd quickly dissipating to the sound of many voices thanking him, he began ambling off down the dusty street beneath a darkening sky at a much less hurried pace and with a much less bent posture and easier gait. Every so often people hailed him from open windows or doors and he would reply in near perfect Uaghiz, though spoken with a rich buttery accent like the ululations of mourners. Finally, just as the first stars were beginning to twinkle through the hazy sky, he seemed to arrive at his destination, a ramshackle overnight stop made of corroded corrugated metal hastily welded together and shored up with loose masonry. No sign marked it, but he seemed to know it well, and pushed the curtain covering the light of the doorway aside and entered. --- Fumes from the benzine cook stove in the back mixed with tobacco, opium, hearth, and other smoke in the air to form a thick cloud that swirled and wafted about the ceiling, creating a heady aroma that was surprisingly not unpleasant and was somewhat familiar to the younger woman sitting alone at a makeshift table that was really a large oil drum with a plank bolted to the top of it, her chair an equally crude polyalloy stool that may have once been the seat of some sort of farm equipment. She did not look too out of place, but her attire screamed 'scavenger' and possibly 'mercenary'. She wore what was likely an old Remnants combat vest, its pockets bulging, over a simple black t-shirt. On her hands she wore fingerless black nanofibre gloves. A wide utility belt encircled her waist, a canteen and many pouches strapped to it but she wore the riding breeches and boots of the northern tribes. This was fitting as her features were unlike any in the establishment, not even the dark skinned newcomer. Both swarthy and ruddy, she had high rounded cheek bones and a curving jaw that ended in a delicate chin beneath pursed lips and a thin straight nose. Her recessed brow line was shaved of eyebrows and did little to shade her heavily lidded almond eyes with their epicanthic folds. Finally a wide, tall, sloping forehead fell back from her brow line and terminated at a colorful scarf that bound up her hair. Just by looking at her anyone could tell she was no stranger to hardship and heavy labor as though she was only of average height, she seemed to have the muscle mass of two grown men. As if she were not imposing enough, however, a salvaged exoskeletal frame, capable of dramatically increasing her strength, speed, and a number of other factors, was attached to her right arm. Her rucksack, also likely old Remnant-make, sat at her feet and beside her lay a long well cared for bag that anyone who knew anything would recognize as a rifle case. Finally, a small, slightly curved, rear-spiked hatchet was holstered on her belt, ready for retrieval at a moment's notice. She sat alone, a plate of half-eaten rice pilaf on her table and a tin can containing wheat beer beside it. Most of the fourteen or so other patrons constantly glanced her way, staring quite blatantly, some out of awe or curiosity, others out of suspicion. Either way, the blue robed newcomer drew virtually no attention as he sat down near the doorway, his gaze naturally following that of the others towards the woman. She seemed quite aware that she was the center of attention and quite uncomfortable with it. Anxiously, she pulled up her left sleeve to scratch an itch, revealing a large black tattoo of the old Chinese character '剩' surrounded by five pointed stars and an outer circle. This was the immediately recognizable insignia of the Remnants, a rather xenophobic military group descended from the Sino-American military left behind after the release of the Anthiogene Plague in the Shatterlands. A few patrons started at the sight, but her sleeve was already rolled back down. Still, the telltale tattoo had been visible long enough for virtually the entire establishment to see it. They knew that no one but one of the Remnants themselves would bear such an insignia on their body. The woman was too busy downing the last of her wheat beer to notice the reaction or realize what she had done. She then called over the barkeep in halting, but fairly decent, Uaghiz and ordered another. The barkeep eyed her warily and nodded slowly. He too had seen the tattoo. The blue robed man watched the barkeep closely as he refilled the tin can then, with a sly grin, dropped something rather small into the can as well. He then turned and began making his way back to the woman. The blue robed man, however, was headed in her direction as well, as if casually approaching the bar and he and the barkeep reached her table simultaneously. The old man noted that the barkeep's sly grin had now grown as he laid the tin can down on the table with a flourish. Immediately, the woman began reaching for it, but the blue robed man was too fast. "Altani!" he cried in surprise, throwing his arms out wide so that his walking staff just so happened to knock the can off the narrow plank, spilling its contents onto the dusty ground. The woman looked up at him in shock. "How good it is to see you!" the old man continued, "What brings you here, of all places?" She stared at him, gawking for a moment. Surely he was mistaking her for someone else, yet something about the tone of his voice and the way he had so precisely knocked her drink aside before she could reach it set off red warning klaxons in her head. "Ah... just passing through," she replied in a similar tone, watching the man closely. He nodded and started hefting her rucksack. "Come, come, I insist, you must stay with me," he said, "I live just around the corner." His haste was apparent and though she thought about snatching her rucksack from his hands, she instead grabbed her other bag, subtly thumbing one of the main clasps open, wordlessly paid the man at the counter, and followed the old man out. --- The two walked about half a block north in complete silence, each seeming to size the other up. Finally he leaned over and whispered in her ear. "There are four men behind us, and one waiting two alleyways ahead," he said in a deathly serious tone. "Two in the alley," she corrected. He eyed her in surprise, his white wild brows shooting upwards at this but he said nothing. "One rule," he said in a voice that made it apparent that there was no room for argument in this, "Minor injuries only. It must looks like a simple bar brawl. You do not wish to draw too much attention, yes?" The woman clenched her jaw, but they were approaching the alleyway where the two would-be ambushers awaited and the old man had a point. Finally she nodded and as if as one, both hurled their luggage to the ground and leaped into motion. Seeing the old man spinning abruptly on a heel, hooked staff at the ready to face those behind, the woman sprinted towards the alleyway, grabbed hold of a piece of drainpipe near the edge, and swung around the corner with both feet. Category:Story Category:Drafts